Re: Grim & Gritty Ultimate Fantastic Four Reboot

One of the most interesting films set to come out next year is the new Fantastic Four reboot with Josh Trank directing and a main cast filled with some of the better up and coming actors working today. There isn’t really a lot known about the film yet, with only rumors and some set photos leaking online the past few months and Trank making a few statements about the tone the film will have. I’m really excited for it honestly, and with the talent involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being one of the best and most interesting superhero films we end up getting.

And today Schmoeville, we here at Schmoes Know got our hands on some new interesting plot details for the film from a very reliable source! First, remember all of the controversy that happened when Michael B. Jordan was announced to be cast as Johnny Storm in the film? For those of you that don’t know, in the comic books Johnny Storm and Sue Storm are brother and sister, and since Sue Storm is being played by Kate Mara in the film, people were worried and curious if they were still going to be siblings in this new reboot. The general thought among the fan community eventually became that Johnny would simply be adopted and they would still be brother and sister, just not biologically.

[spoiler]Well, we have heard from our source that it is actually Mara’s Sue Storm who is adopted in the film, with her and Michael B. Jordan’s parents being African American! (So it’s still basically what we have all assumed about their relationship, only the film has flipped it around.) We have also heard that instead of the group gaining their powers from a failed scientific mission in outer space like in the original comics and (awful) existing films, this time the group’s origin story will be much more like their Ultimate versions.

In the film, the team will gain their powers through a lab experiment gone wrong in a way, where they create a portal to another world or dimension (its not clear) and they get their powers after the exposure to this other dimension/planet. Much like how the group gets their powers in the Ultimate Fantastic Four comics, after they are engulfed in a failed teleporter experiment.[/spoiler]

This definitely makes sense with what the film’s screenwriter, Simon Kinberg has been saying about the film being much more scientific than the previous adaptations and some of the comics. So from both the new cast’s ages and how they get their powers in the film, it seems like this reboot is going to be following the Ultimate run of the comic books much more than the original run.

The other small tidbit of news that we have is that the film is going to be VERY character-driven. I don’t want to say that the action in the film takes a backseat or is secondary, but this first installment is much more focused on setting up the characters and their relationships with each other and their nemesis Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) than it is about making things blow up in big action set pieces. Which I love! The reason Trank’s earlier film, Chronicle, was so good was because it focused so heavily on it’s characters and you felt emotion towards them, so this definitely makes me happy.

That about does it for this scoop Schmoeville! I love all of these new details honestly, and I’m really pumped to see where Trank and Twentieth Century Fox plan on going with this new franchise and how it fits into their cinematic universe!

Re: Grim & Gritty Ultimate Fantastic Four Reboot

The production has been so secretive that nobody outside of the making of Fox’s new take on the Fantastic Four knows exactly what the flick is going to look like or be about, but it’s possible that we’ve already got a blueprint for the Four’s reboot. If you know where to look, that is.

With its X-Men movie franchise now appearing to turn out quality pictures, Fox is looking to make Marvel’s Fantastic Four into an equally bankable property. There hasn’t been much leaked from the production, and that has fans of the Fantastic Four worried.

Adding to those worries have been some of the things people affiliated with the film have said about the new Fantastic Four reboot. For one, the new FF movie will apparently have Johnny and Sue Storm as adopted siblings rather than blood relations, a move that has some fans howling.

Add to that some commentary from Miles Teller, who plays Reed Richards, saying that the story will be told “in a different way,” without a “kitschy, overly comic-book world,” and your average Fantastic Four fan probably just fainted. And that’s not even mentioning Michael B. Jordan’s recent remarks about the Four all in “containment suits” in what he classified as a “gritty film.”

So what could Fox possibly be crafting for a new take on Marvel’s Fantastic Four? It might be the case that the “gritty” nature of the Four was already set out in another comic, but not a Marvel comic.

Starting back in 1999, Wildstorm comics began publishing Planetary. We won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say that Planetary was an amazing journey through the history of comics, expertly written by noted internet madman Warren Ellis and beautifully illustrated by John Cassaday. If you haven’t read it already, do yourself a favor and pick it up.

The main villains in Planetary are a group of former adventurers who went into space, encountered a portal between universes, and returned from their journey much changed. They’re known as the Four.

The leader of the Four is Randal Dowling, creator of Science City Zero. A brilliant scientist, Dowling comes up with the plan to launch the Four into space, and he comes back with the ability to “stretch” his mind, allowing him to steal information from others.

Next up is Kim Süskind, daughter of a Nazi rocket scientist and Dowling’s lover. Kim is able to turn herself invisible and project invisible force fields.

Alongside those two, there’s William Leather, a hothead who comes back from the Four’s journey with the ability to project a fire-like energy from his body, as well as some other super skills.

Finally, there’s Jacob Greene, the pilot who flew the mission that took the Four into space. Greene faired worst of all of the Four, mutating into an incredibly durable but hideously disfigured monster.

So, a stretchy guy, a woman that turns invisible, a hothead fire guy, and a tough, rocky monster. Sound familiar? They should; the Four were, of course, based on Marvel’s Fantastic Four, mimicking the powers of Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing.

What does all this have to do with Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot? Well, think back to what Jordan said about “containment suits” and a “gritty” take on the Fantastic Four. Jordan also had a peculiar way of referring to the Fantastic Four’s fantastic abilities.

“We’re more or less a bunch of kids that had an accident,” Jordan said to MTV News back in July, “and we have disabilities now that we have to cope with, and try to find a life afterwards – try to be as normal as we can.”

“Disabilities,” eh? One thing about the way that the Four are portrayed in Planetary is that they’re not all totally happy with their powers. Süskind can turn invisible, sure, but she also loses the ability to see – because the light isn’t absorbed by her eyes, because they’re transparent, because science! – unless she uses special goggles. Greene, of course, is near indestructible, but so deformed that he can’t live among people.

It’s possible that the more “grounded” approach Fox keeps talking about for the new Fantastic Four could be rooted in the twisted funhouse mirror version seen in Ellis’ Planetary. Not that Jordan, Mara, et al would be villains, per se, but that their powers won’t be exactly the way fans are expecting them to be having read the comics.

And that could be a good thing, because – frankly – the Fantastic Four are kind of silly. That shows through in the rather lackluster reception the two previous Fantastic Four films got; neither was a bomb, but nobody has been clamoring for Michael Chiklis to put his Thing costume back on, eh?

Of course, this is all just conjecture, as nobody knows what the Fantastic Four will look like when they take the screen late next summer. Still, taking a page from some other comics and avoiding the happy-go-lucky, shiny look of the previous films could be exactly what Fox needs to do to turn the Four into a household name.

While director Josh Trank said Friday that he had “made a personal decision” to leave the Star Wars universe, sources say reports of the young director’s unusual conduct during the making of Fox’s upcoming Fantastic Four movie had raised alarm among Lucasfilm executives that were entrusting him with the second Star Wars standalone film.

Trank, 30, had raised eyebrows in April when he didn’t appear as scheduled at a Star Wars celebration in Anaheim. At the time, both Disney and the director cited illness as the cause but multiple knowledgeable sources say the studio had asked the filmmaker not to attend while considering whether to proceed with him on the second spinoff in a planned series of films.

Indeed, producers on Fantastic Four, set for release July 30, are said to have faced great challenges pulling the film together given behavior described by one insider as “erratic” and at times “very isolated.” Trank did not offer clear direction, this person adds, saying, "If you've got someone who can't answer questions or who isn't sure or is in hiding, that's not good."

A Fox spokesman says the studio is “very happy with the movie and we can’t wait for audiences to see it” but acknowledges, “There were definitely some bumps in the road.”

Among those bumps: Trank has several small dogs who were left in a rented house in New Orleans while the film was shooting there. According to sources, as much as $100,000 worth of damage was done to the property. A source says the production considers any destruction of the property to be Trank's responsibility.

Citing Trank’s work on the 2012 found-footage superhero movie Chronicle, an insider says: “No question there’s talent there. You can’t do Chronicle by accident.” But Trank seemed “like one of these kids who comes to the NBA with all the talent and none of the character-based skills to handle it. There’s equipment he doesn’t yet have.”

According to sources, Trank was sometimes indecisive and uncommunicative. Producers Simon Kinberg and Hutch Parker had to step in to help pull the film together, though sources stress that Trank was still on set and directing the film. (Were that not the case, the production could have run afoul of the Directors Guild of America.)

Just over three months from opening, Fox’s Fantastic Four has done re-shoots. Those were complicated because stars Miles Teller, Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan had obligations on other films. The most recent round, which involved three days of re-shoots at the end of April, had to take place on weekends because of Teller’s work on Todd Phillip’s Arms and the Dude. Parker and Kinberg are said to have been heavily involved in those re-shoots, pulling them away from duties in Canada on X-Men: Apocalypse, which they also are producing.

Given the issues with Trank’s performance, the production added Stephen Rivkin (Avatar) to help pull the film together. Trank had hired his Chronicle editor, Elliot Greenberg, on the project.

Fantastic Four is meant to reboot the Marvel superhero franchise for Fox. The comic is venerated for its place in history as it launched Marvel Comics in 1962 and was the early creation from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Fox made two movies, released in 2005 and 2007, that made $330 million and $289 million respectively but failed to capture moviegoers’ imagination. Fox hastened to make a new movie as it risked having the rights revert back to Marvel.

Kinberg, who is producing the second Star Wars standalone project (the first, Rogue One, is being directed by Gareth Edwards for a December 2016 release), is said to have communicated his displeasure with Trank to Kathleen Kennedy and the team at Lucasfilm. As the Star Wars brain trust heard more about Trank's behavior and working style, they became less confident in handing over the film to him.

Now, having decided to part ways, the studio is searching for another filmmaker to take over the project.

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

It was bound to happen. The "Chronicle" guys - both Trank and Landis - are known in Hollywood for their wild behavior. I still think Fox made a mistake hiring Trank for "Fantastic Four". The guy is just too unpredictable (and maybe too young) to properly handle a big-budget movie like this one. The fact they're reshooting scenes right now under the direction of Matthew Vaughn really says it all. They clearly don't want to deal with Trank. Not anymore.

The suits should've known better.

On the next one they should just call Wes Ball - a terrific, down-to-earth young filmmaker, who (in my opinion) is the next big thing.

"You know why the departures and the arrivals at LAX are on separate levels? So the 30,000 heartbreakers that come here each month don't notice the 30,000 that are leaving with their hearts broken."

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

It looks like this is gonna be the movie of the year and a clear candidate that will sweep the table clean at the Oscars next year!!
Shit, did I say the Oscars? My bad!! I meant at the Razzies!!
It has an mind blowing 4,0 at IMDB at the moment!! LOL!!!!http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1502712/?ref_=hm_cht_t1

I haven't read or heard anybody say that this is a good movie, so I'll take everybody's advise and save my money...

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

Originally Posted by frolunda71

It looks like this is gonna be the movie of the year and a clear candidate that will sweep the table clean at the Oscars next year!!
Shit, did I say the Oscars? My bad!! I meant at the Razzies!!
It has an mind blowing 4,0 at IMDB at the moment!! LOL!!!!http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1502712/?ref_=hm_cht_t1

I haven't read or heard anybody say that this is a good movie, so I'll take everybody's advise and save my money...

Do you agree with me that Fox should just stick to X-men and related properties and leave other Marvel properties like FF alone? and Marvel should get FF rights back?

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

Haven't seen it yet, but it appears to me from what others have said Fox figuratively did this: Took a bowl, filled it with dog turds, put sprinkles over the turds and tried to pass it off as Icecream.

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them."
-John Wayne (The Shootist)

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

Originally Posted by HarryCanyon

Do you agree with me that Fox should just stick to X-men and related properties and leave other Marvel properties like FF alone? and Marvel should get FF rights back?

Is this a trick question? Does the Pope wear a hat?
No doubt Fox should just stick to X-Men cause those have been good movies so far. Now they have tried three times to get a good FF movie and haven't even been close of getting it right. Marvel should get the rights back for FF, but I doubt they are very interested of getting those rights cause the FF characters aren't that interesting and as others have said before, the only reason would be to get the those rights, is to use Doom as a bad guy in some future Marvel movie.

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

Before we get to fan questions, the big entertainment news of the past week has been the "Fantastic Four" movie -- obviously that's a 20th Century Fox production Marvel didn't have direct involvement in -- emerging as a critical and financial disappointment upon release. I'm curious as to how this might affect the way the Fantastic Four are viewed internally at Marvel. I imagine there are three outcomes: This will make Marvel less likely to unveil a new "Fantastic Four" series, due to the notion it's a tainted property; it'll make Marvel more likely, because they want to prove to the world it's a viable concept and how to do it; or not affected at all, and that plans will just continue the way they were.

Alonso: Not affected at all. We have our plan. Whether the movie was a hit or a failure was irrelevant to us. We've got great stories to tell in the coming year, and "Secret Wars" sets the stage for them.

Before Simon Kinberg came on as producer and to rewrite the film, Fantastic Four was a totally different beast. It took its early cues from the Ultimate Fantastic Four, but by the end of the script the movie was all about big, brash Stan Lee and Jack Kirby action. It’s the kind of script that you could imagine Marvel Studios making.

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

I said it before - Fantastic Four never works because the characters look like dorks! What kid would want to look like the Thing? Or Mr. Fantastic with stretchy limbs looking like a clown?

Kids want "cool" and "hot" looking characters.

I said before that they should reinvent the Fantastic Four. Thing doesn't have to look like a bulky pile of rock thrown together. He could be a good looking character that could turn his skin as hard as stone (sort of like Colossus of the X-Men being able to turn his skin into metal). Mr. Fantastic could manipulate water and not have stretchy limbs.

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

LRM:
Okay. What's up with Fantastic Four? ... And, Will Marvel ever consider helping out or getting involved with a Fox project just like they did with Sony?

Simon Kinberg:
We haven't had any discussions with Marvel about them getting involved on any of the movies at Fox, as far as I know, and we, meaning me and Fox and Hutch Parker, who's producer too, have been talking a lot about what to do next with FANTASTIC FOUR. It's a super, super, super high priority for all of us, and for me personally, it's a super high priority because it really bums me out that we disappointed the fans and that we didn't make a great movie last time out. I think we learned a lot of lessons from that experience and lessons that we could bring to the next one and hopefully make a movie that is worthy of the title.

Re: Fantastic Four Origins: Doctor Doom

We’ll also likely see Fantastic Four come back in some form, because in order to keep its license and prevent the characters from reverting to Marvel Studios, Fox has to make some sort of Fantastic Four movie relatively soon.

The 'Legion' creator made the announcement at the show's Comic-Con panel.
Fox has been eyeing ways to revive the Fantastic Four franchise for the big screen, and Legion creator Noah Hawley made one of those ways public Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con.

At the end of his panel for FX's Legion, Hawley teased that he is developing a movie for Fox that fans may be interested in.

"Two words," he said. "Doctor. Doom."

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Hawley is developing a feature project centering around one of Marvel Comics' most recognizable villains with an eye to direct.

The character is the chief antagonist of Marvel's Fantastic Four, the superteam created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to which Fox has the movie rights.

The Fantastic Four has had a somewhat troubled big-screen history. Tim Story directed the 2005 film Fantastic Four and the 2007 sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. While they were commercially successful, they were not quite embraced by fans. A 2015 reboot directed by Josh Trank was a critical and commercial bomb so damaging that it led to Trank being fired from a Star Wars spinoff.

Fox has been looking to reboot and reimagine the franchise after the lackluster performance of the 2015 outing, and another Fantastic Four movie would just not do, so the studio is looking at various angles. There are rumors that Seth Grahame-Smith is working on a Fantastic Four spinoff featuring Franklin Richards, the son of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Girl.

Victor Von Doom (aka Doctor Doom) is a scientific genius and totalitarian ruler of the fictional country of Latveria. He wears a metal mask to hide his disfigured face and rules his land with an iron fist. Julian McMahon played Doctor Doom in the first two films, while Toby Kebbell portrayed the character in the 2015 version.

The announcement came at the tail end of the first-ever Comic-Con panel for FX's X-Men drama Legion, which will return for its second season next year. Hawley also recently wrapped the third season of FX anthology Fargo, with the future of that franchise hinging on the prolific showrunner coming up with an idea for another cycle.

Re: Fantastic Four Reboot

Jeremy Latcham spends much of his time hanging out with the coolest guys in the universe.

He was always popular. You don’t become student body president at Union High School, as the 1999 graduate was, without having a lot of friends.

But now he counts among his closest pals this lineup: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk. Not to mention Peter Quill, Groot and Rocket Raccoon.

Latcham is senior vice president of production development for Marvel Studios. He’s the executive producer of this summer’s most anticipated sequel, “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” as he was for the first film and also last summer’s hit “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Latcham is one of the major players in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He’s one of Hollywood’s most respected young executives, and at 34, he’s already been part of Marvel’s braintrust for several years, becoming the on-set manager of 250-million-dollar productions.

This can mean umpteen-hour days and spending months on end with his wife out of the country for shooting (11 months in London, Italy, South Korea and more on “Age of Ultron”).

And yet, when he talks Marvel movies, he still has the youthful enthusiasm of a teen planning a pep rally for Union’s Friday night football game.
So who are his best buds, the fun bunch: the Avengers or the Guardians?

“Oh, wow, they are so different that I think of them like (“Guardians” director) James Gunn does, that if the Avengers are the Beatles, the Guardians of the Galaxy are the Rolling Stones,” Latcham said in a phone interview last week.

“The Avengers get to do things that you can’t do in any other movies, with these gigantic set pieces that are earned because you have such iconic characters,” he said.

“ ‘Guardians’ was such a risk, with no idea how people were going to respond to it, and I ended up at a place where I thought, ‘I want people to love this as much as I do,’ you know?” he said of the film full of unknown characters that the public embraced completely.

Getting to the bottom line: Which of these groups, at the end of the day, is Latcham hanging out with and having a beer?

“Well, it’s probably the Avengers because I’ve known them for so long, and they are a pretty fun-loving group,” Latcham said of the heroes last seen following up a winning battle for control of the universe with a sit-down dinner of shawarma all around in “The Avengers” post-credit scene.

“It’s funny to be talking about this because there is this great scene in the first act of ‘Age of Ultron’ that finds them all having beers, and you really feel that camaraderie. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Latcham’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” responsibilities extend well beyond filming to include marketing concepts and post-production efforts and movie premieres.

He attended the latest premiere with his three favorite ladies: his wife, Aileen Erin, the author of the popular young-adult series of “Alpha Girl” books; his mom, Kristi Latcham, No. 1 cheerleader of his career, along with his dad, Greg; and his grandmother Doris Hopper who still lives in Oklahoma in Perkins.

“Seeing my grandmother walk down that red carpet and meet the stars — she couldn’t believe it, and I just loved it. She had such a good time,” Latcham said.

He added how thrilled he was to include her in the event following the recent death of his grandfather John Hopper, a career educator who assisted in forming the first vo-tech schools in Oklahoma and who served as superintendent of Central Vo-Tech in Drumright for more than a quarter century.

“He was very important to me and a really big influence on my life,” Latcham said.

“I’ll always remember him telling me that I could do anything, and he didn’t think my idea to try to make movies in California was crazy at all.”

From helping out on filming a Mazzio’s Pizza Dippers commercial in Tulsa to interning at indie studio Miramax to winning a car on “The Price is Right” to pay for a second Hollywood summer internship — he has his own great Hollywood story — Latcham has climbed the ladder quickly and confirmed his grandfather’s faith in his abilities.

He’s earned his stripes as one of the key Marvel lieutenants working for Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios. Latcham is increasingly the Marvel representative who talks to the media about Marvel films.

His words reveal his knowledge of that universe but no secrets.

So what’s new in this “Avengers” movie? To start with, a breathless beginning. They are the Avengers, and they apparently need no introduction after their mega-success first film.

“The movie starts off with an action-packed scene, and they are all together helping each other in battle, and it is epic,” Latcham said.

“That first shot is continuous for like 1 minute, 20 seconds of just nonstop action, and it is incredible.”

He’s excited about the film’s heart, action and surprises. He’s thrilled with the work of writer-director Joss Whedon, and he paid an ultimate compliment to the man who’s moving on to other projects after directing both “Avengers” films.

“I think he writes the best version of Thor. I think he writes the best version of Captain America. That’s how good he is,” Latcham said of Whedon’s distinctive voice.

“I’ve spent much of the last five years with him, so it’s going to be weird to not be getting calls and texts from Joss about the movie.”

Latcham will move on to spend the better part of the next few years working on the sequels.

He said he will continue as executive producer on “Avengers: Infinity War — Part I” and its sequel, the third and fourth films teaming up Marvel’s superheroes and set for 2018 and 2019.

The two movies will film back-to-back in Atlanta, meaning several more years that Latcham will spend with his friends in high places — like Asgard and beyond.

Top Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham is leaving his post for an overall production deal at 20th Century Fox, two individuals familiar with the move told TheWrap.

Latcham, who was most recently credited on the blockbuster “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” will produce original films through his own company set up at the studio, the insiders said.

Latcham’s transition is expected to happen by September. Representatives for Fox and Marvel did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Currently serving as Marvel’s Senior Vice President of Production and Development, Latcham is one of the earliest architects of the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He started as a producer on Robert Downey Jr.’s “Iron Man” series and climbed the ranks to EP on “The Avengers” and its sequel “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” He also shepherded the successful launch of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” series, starring Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana.

With plenty of above-the-line talent pondering when to step away from the billion-dollar Disney property, it’s safe to assume legacy producers would look ahead as a new block of Marvel films like Brie Larson’s “Captain Marvel” takes shape.